Wikipedia:Teahouse/Host/Featured

Background
This front page feature automatically loads a new host image and name within the Teahouse header on the Q&A front page. It is intended to show a range of the most active hosts that a visitor to the Teahouse might encounter. It was developed by User:Jtmorgan in 2012, who described it as "just another way to make our pages a little more dynamic". It switches every time the page is re-cached on the server, but not every time you hit 'refresh'. A 'Your Hosts' button within the Teahouse Header allows a visitor to view a much longer list of all Teahouse Hosts (which are directly editable here).

At one time, the images available for selection were automatically updated on a weekly basis, based upon editor activity/inactivity. This was done by HostBot, with a script moving hosts from "active" to "inactive" pages. However, unknown bugs in that script occasionally caused problems and deletion of Host entries, so automatic updating was suspended in 2013, though the random selection of Featured Host names and image continues.

Note: The term 'Featured' is used only in the context of this tool. It does not appear on the Teahouse header, nor does it imply any particular badge of merit. It simply attempts to show a changeable set of images reflecting some of the most likely-to-be-encountered host names at the Teahouse.

Updating
By 2019 both the full list of all hosts, as well as this 'Featured Hosts' list had become extremely out of date. Many editors were either inactive at the Teahouse or had left Wikipedia altogether. A review of these lists removed all of the most-inactive host editors (except for the two Teahouse founders) and refreshed this list with the most active ones at that time. This selection is being updated, again as at January 2022.

They are all listed at Teahouse/Host/Featured (this page), but each has an individual sub-page entry, numbered from Teahouse/Host/Featured/1 through to Teahouse/Host/Featured/31. These are then randomly selected for display within the Teahouse Header by use of the template.

Manual updating of the 30 Featured Host entries in mid-2019 was based on the most currently active editors, as revealed by an XTools analysis of the last 50,000 Teahouse edits (see here), tempered against an analysis of total edits to the Teahouse by each host, also as revealed byXtools. There is an intentional bias to included active young or female Teahouse Hosts, where known, as both groups are generally under-represented in our editor demographic.

If you have alternate suggestions for how Featured Hosts should operate, please let User:Jtmorgan know and/or start a discussion on the Teahouse Talk page. Please do not attempt to add yourself unilaterally to this feature; discuss changes at WT:TH first, please.